Trans kids - UnHerd https://stage.unherd.com/tag/trans-kids/ think again Tue, 05 Jul 2022 00:13:02 +0000 en-US hourly 12 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1.4 https://stage.unherd.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/cropped-favicon.jpg?w=32 Trans kids - UnHerd https://stage.unherd.com/tag/trans-kids/ 32 32 241382538 The dangers of gender-affirmative care https://stage.unherd.com/2022/07/the-dangers-of-gender-affirmative-care/?edition=us https://stage.unherd.com/2022/07/the-dangers-of-gender-affirmative-care/?edition=us#comments https://stage.unherd.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/gettyimages-805518052-594x594-1.jpg?w=525 https://stage.unherd.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/3.jpg?w=96 Eliza Mondegreen is a researcher and freelance writer.

]]> elizamondegreen Mon, 04 Jul 2022 23:00:47 +0000 Tue, 05 Jul 2022 00:13:02 +0000 https://old.unherd.com/?p=435092 The Biden administration recently announced a plan to ban “conversion therapy” and dismantle barriers to “gender-affirming care” for transgender-identifying children and adolescents. A few days later, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal introduced the  “Transgender Bill of Rights” on Capitol Hill which sought to legislate what the Biden Administration proposed to impose by executive order.

On this issue, the Democratic Party assumes the mantle of righteousness. Who could oppose “life-saving” “gender-affirming care”? Who supports “conversion therapy”, which the Biden administration described as “a discredited and dangerous practice that seeks to suppress or change the sexual orientation or gender identity of LGBTQI+ people”?

The reality diverges sharply from the loaded language the Biden Administration deploys, lifting terms directly from the most radical trans activists occupying positions at the outermost extreme of an ongoing debate between different factions of gender clinicians.

The dispute over how best to treat gender-questioning children that the Biden Administration seeks to resolve by enshrining “gender-affirming care” and stigmatising “conversion therapy” boils down to whether or not clinicians regard the children in their care as exceptions to everything we know about child development, human biology, sexual orientation, and more. Attending closely to the language of the activists with whom the Biden Administration has sided provides a masterclass in how to manipulate language to normalise risky and invasive medical intervention on a class of people — children — who are widely understood to be unable to provide consent in other contexts.

For exploratory providers, a child’s transgender identification is the beginning of a clinical inquiry that will travel through the individual patient’s biography, their social context, and the templates the culture at large offers that young patients use to make sense of suffering. Nothing magical or transformative happens when a patient experiences gender dysphoria or expresses a transgender identity. Children and adolescents remain children and adolescents. Clinical practice does not overthrow itself when a young patient changes her pronouns.

For affirmative clinicians, on the other hand, the declaration of a transgender identity and the desire for a particular gender presentation suffice. That’s what affirmation means: no further inquiry required. A transfer of loyalty takes place when affirmative clinicians are confronted with “trans” children and adolescents: clinicians’ sense of responsibility shifts from the patient in front of them to the patient’s transgender “alter”. Doctor and patient then collude to slice and drug the patient’s body into compliance with the new identity regime.

Across the Atlantic, countries such as Sweden, Finland, and the United Kingdom are stepping back and shifting away from hormones and surgeries and toward exploratory psychotherapy as evidence of harm mounts. It’s remarkable that the United States government has chosen this moment to double down, without reference to serious inquiries underway at home and abroad.

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Rather than bending the arc of history toward justice, the Biden administration has put the full force of the federal government behind a treatment model that amounts to little more than an unregulated medical experiment on vulnerable children and adolescents. Don’t let the language of civil rights fool you.

To understand gender affirmation and the people who push it, we need to take a closer look at their belief in the utterly exceptional “transgender” child. What do affirmative clinicians believe about such a patient, who arrives in their office with a label firmly affixed? Affirmative care starts not with a question or a clinical assessment but with a moral imperative: validate the patient’s transgender identity.

Presented with a “transgender” patient, what else matters? Does a patient’s age or developmental stage matter? What about his or her sex or sexual orientation? What parts of a patient’s life story — or medical history — stand out?

Gender clinicians such as Johanna Olson-Kennedy prefer to talk about gender-questioning three-year-olds as “people”. And they are people. But when we talk about three-year-olds as “people”, rather than toddlers, important information gets lost, with consequences. When we talk about “people”, we think adults. We think autonomy. When we talk about “toddlers,” we think: tiny humans who need constant care and guidance, who cannot be trusted to brush their teeth or cross an empty street, much less start down a medical pathway.

That’s the reason Olson-Kennedy talks about “people” when she’s referring to toddlers. The ideas that underpin gender-affirming care lose their moral force when translated from “people know who they are” to “toddlers know who they are”.

What about sex and sexual orientation? As recently as the mid-2000s, medical providers understood cross-sex identification in childhood and adolescence to be a normal stage of homosexual development, resolving in the majority of cases as the child moved through adolescence and became comfortable with his or her sexual development and sexual orientation. Long before the concept of gender identity took root, the idea of being “born in the wrong body” resonated with many young gays and lesbians — not to mention medical providers, who viewed homosexuals as “inverts” in need of psychological or surgical “correction”.

Affirmative providers overlook, downplay, or outright deny the overrepresentation of same-sex attracted youth among youth seeking transition. But clinicians who rate the “gender presentation” of “transgender” preschoolers on a scale from stereotypical girl (fitted, sparkly, frilly) to stereotypical boy (baggy, sporty) inevitably sweep up children whose rejection of gender stereotypes is rooted in their same-sex orientation. Affirmative providers such as Diane Ehrensaft argue that “prototransgender youth use [same-sex] sexual identity as a stepping-stone toward their transgender true gender self”, a rhetorical move that overwrites the connection between homosexual development and gender dysphoria, and equates accepting your same-sex sexual orientation with pursuing irreversible medical interventions.

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Much like their views on same-sex attraction as a “stepping stone” toward a young person’s “transgender true gender self”, affirmative providers treat just about any mental health comorbidities as secondary to gender dysphoria. Suicide attempts, psychotic episodes, anorexia nervosa, depression, anxiety, autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, experiences of sexual abuse and trauma, and substance abuse aren’t taken as reasons to question or delay transition but instead are treated as evidence for the need to accelerate transition.

In order to grease the skids, affirmative providers have invented or adapted a wide range of new medical concepts, all of which operate to obscure what they do from the public and from providers themselves,  scrambling the complex clinical presentations they need to parse — and manipulating patients, parents, and policymakers. These concepts include “wrong puberty”, “sex assigned at birth”, “reconstructive surgeries”,  and “internalised transphobia”.

Reconceptualising patients as “wrongly sexed” (thus in need of reconstructive relief) and giving allegiance over to the patient’s transgender “alter” over the physical patient and her social and medical history skew clinical assessments and lower clinicians’ barriers to providing experimental medical interventions. Girls become “boys”, not in reality, but in the way gender clinicians talk about reality. Elective double mastectomies on girls become “reconstructive chest surgery” on “boys”. Exploratory therapy to understand where distress over sex and gender originates becomes “conversion therapy,” something no ethical clinician would practice. Drastic, life-altering medical interventions — such as “pausing” puberty and all the cognitive, physical, and emotional development that goes along with it — become conceptualised as non-interventions on the one hand, “life-saving” on the other. In any case, language becomes detached from reality, skewing risk analysis.

This language of determined identities and autonomous “people” speak to the way affirmative clinicians see their role: deferring to patient self-identification and facilitating hormonal and surgical interventions to bring patients’ bodies in line with how they want to “wear their gender”, Meanwhile, activists inside the medical profession push for policy changes to lower the age at which minors can consent to transition — a priority of the forthcoming guidelines from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health — and remove requirements for parental assent. California legislators are on the verge of passing a bill that would equate denial of “gender-affirming care” with child abuse, a move advocates say would turn California into a “sanctuary state” for trans-identifying children.

Ask for stronger evidence or stricter safeguarding measures and you’ll get an earful about suicide and self harm: affirmation is a “matter of life and death.” (Never mind that researchers had to cook bad survey data at extremely high temperatures in order to make such dire claims.)

Affirmative clinicians frequently compare gender dysphoria to endocrine conditions such as diabetes. Take Johanna Olson-Kennedy, dismissing the need to explore the causes of a young person’s distress over gender: “I don’t send someone to a therapist when I’m going to start them on insulin”. Never mind that medical providers can test for diabetes (and monitor whether the treatment is working), while relying on patient testimony to initiate medical transition. Never mind that untreated diabetes kills. Analogies to cancer also abound, especially when clinicians need to justify serious risks like permanent loss of fertility and the very real possibility that patients will lead shorter, sicker lives after medical transition. Ask clinicians and they’ll tell you that gender dysphoria, like cancer, is a life-threatening condition. In the absence of supporting evidence, this is emotional extortion, nothing more.

Affirmative clinicians evade the possibility of regret and detransition. They prefer to talk about “gender fluidity” or “gender journeys”— “journeys” that may include puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and elective double mastectomies. Journeys that could not and should not have been avoided, in other words.

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Affirmative providers also cleave to a narrow set of explanations about why patients experience regret and detransition, pinning regret and detransition on lack of social support for the patient’s transgender identification. By placing the blame on factors outside the medical system, providers avoid the suggestion that regret and detransition may be the result of inadequate evaluation or inappropriate medical interventions. This interpretation also keeps patients firmly within the ideological framework that underlies affirmative care. Under this framework, a patient remains “really transgender”, even if external factors conspire to keep the patient from living out that identity. Even if the patient disavows their transgender identity entirely.

***

If affirmative providers’ belief in the exceptional “transgender” child bears out, we can make a strong case for affirmation. But if this belief is merely an article of faith, nothing more, clinicians risk doing serious harm to their patients under the banner of affirmation. In other words, if gender-dysphoric children and adolescents are truly exceptions to everything we know about identity formation, child and adolescent development, how humans make sense of distress and their susceptibility to social influence, the role of sexual orientation in gender dysphoria, and more, then affirmation may be the right approach.

But what if supporters of gender-affirming care are wrong?

What if children who identify as transgender are just that: children? What if they hurt, like other children? What if they’re trying to figure themselves out and learn how to navigate the strange world they live in, like other children?

What’s changed are the ideas and expectations that we’ve raised children on and the way we’ve turned them loose in an online world whose terrain no one has mapped. Many of these children have grown up with extended experiences of online disembodiment. They may not be free to run around outside with their friends but they’re free to roam the darkest corners of the Internet. Who knows what strangers and strange ideas they encounter there.

These children have grown up hearing a very new and confusing set of fairy tales about gendered souls that can end up in the ‘wrong bodies’. Adults who should know better — adults who do know better — have made these children impossible promises.

Children who identify as trans aren’t sages. They aren’t sacred. They haven’t been endowed with wisdom beyond their years. It’s not fair to treat them as exceptions to the safeguards we place around children, so that when they grow up and change their minds and ask why we let them do this, we say: You wanted it. You asked for it. You were so sure. What else could we have done?

There’s a way in which everything that touches trans must be exceptional — the children, the stakes, the feelings, the possibility of knowing anything for sure — because if these kids aren’t exceptional, then we threw everything we knew out the window. We didn’t ‘help’ exceptional children but harmed ordinary ones, struggling with ordinary challenges of development, sexual orientation, identity, meaning, and direction.

view comments]]> https://stage.unherd.com/2022/07/the-dangers-of-gender-affirmative-care/?edition=us?appcommentsnew https://stage.unherd.com/2022/07/the-dangers-of-gender-affirmative-care/?edition=us/feed/ 435092 Drag kids are the product of a dangerous American delusion https://stage.unherd.com/2019/11/drag-kids-are-the-product-of-a-dangerous-american-delusion/?edition=us https://stage.unherd.com/2019/11/drag-kids-are-the-product-of-a-dangerous-american-delusion/?edition=us#respond https://stage.unherd.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/GettyImages-1147187060.jpg?w=528 https://stage.unherd.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/douglasmu.jpg?w=96 Douglas Murray is an author and journalist.

]]> DouglasKMurray Fri, 08 Nov 2019 00:15:58 +0000 Fri, 08 Nov 2019 09:37:45 +0000 http://old.unherd.com/?p=23963

“How sexy is that kid?”

If anyone thinks that such a sentence is unimaginable, unutterable in our concerned, paedophile-aware times, then let me introduce you to the gateway-phrase: “Drag kid.”

This week, the world has become a little more aware of this horrid little phrase because the internet has become a little more aware of it. And that is because of the promotion of a 12-year old ‘drag kid’ known by the name Desmond is Amazing.

Desmond was born in America and claims to have become interested in drag at the age of two, after watching Ru Paul’s Drag Race. He says he started going to drag shows at the age of five, since when he has performed in drag, modelled and carved out a role as an “LGBTQ activist”. The website Mashable (which has almost 10 million followers on Twitter) this week sent out a video about Desmond with the following headline: “Desmond is Amazing is the future and we’re here for it.” As it happens, Mashable put Desmond’s age at 10.

Even writing about this case is difficult because it only furthers the sort of intrusion which those around Desmond — and especially his mother (who also appears in the Mashable video) — have not only permitted but clearly encouraged. Yet once such things are put before us, we cannot all simply accept them, or remain silent. And the case of Desmond is worth noting not because of its oddity — but because it is an especially modern American story.

First and foremost, it is a story of celebrity. A story in which reality and the search for celebrity become so entwined that it is hard to know what is sincere and what is not, what is real and what is not. In his videos, Desmond talks casually and proudly about “fans” coming up to him in the street, doing “videos” and the like. But this story is not about American children — it’s about American adults and their problem with reality.

It’s about the fantastically shallow and ignorant modern American adult delusion that the ‘self’ is a preternatural thing and exists in some orbit of its own. That everybody has a ‘self’ and that this can be ‘known’. That rather than ‘becoming’, a person ‘discovers’ their ‘self’ – a process which is believed to be truer the faster it is arrived at. “Be yourself!” “Don’t let anyone tell you!” and a thousand other sayings from the Hallmarks Cards philosophy of our time all embed this illiterate idea.

The delusion takes no account of the influences affecting us all — influences which profoundly affect every human from birth. American popular culture takes little or no notice of this non-preternatural fact, because if it did, then it would have to do some accounting for its own behaviour, or at least for the diet of entertainment it is willing to pump into the homes and heads of the very young.

The fastest way to avoid any such accounting is to pretend that people just ‘are’, and that if the wider culture has any impact at all, then it is merely in providing affirmatory, confirming visions which the individual recognises as being in line with the self that they have already intuited.

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Let me, in that case, put a contrary point of view. Which is that Desmond’s manner, dress and performance style is not the product of some pre-existing instinct but a mere, evident copy. When he moves his arms like Judy Garland there are two possibilities. One is that Desmond emerged from the womb like Judy. The other is that he watched people, and his mother encouraged him to watch people, who were successful and fascinating to a young child, and he chose to imitate them and was told he could ‘be’ them.

When he says at the outset of the Mashable video, “Can you come up here, you look gorgeous”, in an affected, nasally voice, there may be people who say (like Mashable) “Here is the true 10-year old child”. But most others will say: “Here is a child who you can see is doing an impression of a highly sexualised type of American adult celebrity.” A clear indication of this is that after saying “gorgeous”, Desmond looks to the adults in the room for laughter, approval and affirmation. The adults in the room (presumably including Desmond’s mother) oblige, and thus does he receive what he seeks.

Likewise, when he talks about “haters” and the importance of ignoring them in this and other videos, this is not the innate wisdom of a child being imparted to a bigoted, post-lapsarian world. It is merely another person – this time a child – chanting one of the taught mantras of the American pop-cultural age: “Haters gonna hate” etc. There is no insight here. It is merely a copy, as drag is. A copy of a copy of a copy.

Of course Desmond is not the only child to have been presented in such way. The child reality TV star Jazz Jennings grew up in America as a ‘trans’ child with a reality television series. That series made Jennings and her family rich as well as famous. And while still a child (Jennings is now past 18), the male-to-female transsexual was not just celebrated in the same way that Desmond is, but was also asked intrusive and intimate questions. This included – on prime time – questions about who Jazz was attracted to.

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None of this is new: many cultures around the world allow for some form of sexualisation of children. But here it is surprising. The modern West has long exercised such a degree of opprobrium towards the taboo that the slightest hint it might be breaking down affects a great pushback. While people feel distinctly unable to make many moral judgements, about the idea of paedophilia — and that an adult might find a child “sexy” — we are very judgemental indeed. It’s a feeling the tabloid press has harnessed to great effect. Even if there is nothing else we know to be wrong, we know this to be wrong.

By insisting that a child like Desmond should not just be allowed to be something, but should perform as a sexualised adult, and that this should in fact be ‘the future’, it would seem that something further is at work. What is it? It’s unlikely that it is an organised push for tolerance or acceptance of paedophilia. But it does feel like an expression of the ‘Fuck you’ politics of our time.

If people are persuaded – and many Americans are – that they live in a cis-hetero-normative, bigoted, patriarchal, homophobic, transphobic society, in which all difference is squeezed out and forbidden, then that belief may do many things to you. One thing it may do, is cause you to push back with every maddening, extreme tool that you have at your disposal. So people must not simply tolerate things. They must be ‘confronted’ with them. Those who have imbibed this idea have already stretched themselves very far. But in pushing ‘Desmond is Amazing’ on the world, they may have reached one of their limits.

It is an interesting lesson in its way. People pushing tolerance and acceptance of normal differences end up over-compensating, in the vengeful and extreme tone of the time, and in the process risk not ‘liberalising’ the culture, but toxifying the movements they presume to speak on behalf of.

‘Drag children’ are not the way to break down the instinctive conservatism of the American public. They are the best imaginable way to make any such conservatism rear up again, in the knowledge that this time there is something serious not just to oppose, but to defend.

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view comments]]> https://stage.unherd.com/2019/11/drag-kids-are-the-product-of-a-dangerous-american-delusion/?edition=us?appcommentsnew https://stage.unherd.com/2019/11/drag-kids-are-the-product-of-a-dangerous-american-delusion/?edition=us/feed/ 23963 How have we let scientific study become hate speech? https://stage.unherd.com/2018/12/let-scientific-study-become-trans-speech-2/?edition=us https://stage.unherd.com/2018/12/let-scientific-study-become-trans-speech-2/?edition=us#comments https://stage.unherd.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/GettyImages-644661168.jpg?w=525 https://stage.unherd.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/meghan.jpg?w=96 Meghan Murphy is a Canadian writer, host of the Same Drugs podcast and People’s Party of Canada candidate in Vancouver East.

]]> FeministCurrent host of the Same Drugs podcast and People’s Party of Canada candidate in Vancouver East.]]> Fri, 28 Dec 2018 07:00:22 +0000 Fri, 28 Dec 2018 07:00:22 +0000 http://old.unherd.com/?p=18016 The growing trend in young people suddenly deciding they are “in the wrong body” and must “transition” to the opposite sex is alarming. It means that more and more kids are being sent down a path of drastic body and life changes. The consequences of getting this wrong could not be more serious. Study after study has shown that a majority of youth who claim to have gender dysphoria do not continue to experience this in adulthood. Yet the puberty blockers and the hormone treatments given to ‘trans kids’ eventually lead to permanent sterilisation. And yet as the trend takes hold, the attempts to shut down public debate also grow stronger – which is just as alarming.

Last month, Brown University assistant professor Lisa Littman published a paper looking at this “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” in adolescents and young adults. Through surveying the parents of these teens, she found that this sudden onset of “gender dysphoria” was taking place in peer groups in which one or more friends became gender dysphoric at the same time. In other words, this seemed to be kids following trends.

Academic studies and public debate should not be narrowly determined by those committed to the ideologies in question
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From the 256 surveys Littman collected, she found that a large majority of these youths were female (82.8%), and 41% had identified as non-heterosexual prior to identifying as transgender. Almost two thirds had also been diagnosed with at least one mental health disorder or neurodevelopmental disability before they claimed to have gender dysphoria.

One might deduce, based on this evidence, that these (mainly) girls were not, in fact, transgender, but lesbians and/or struggling with other mental health issues beyond gender dysphoria. And crucially, that these factors should be explored before leaping to start “transitioning” — a process that eventually involves a lifetime of hormone treatments and a series of complicated surgeries.

These facts, though, have been deemed unspeakable. Those who dare question the concept of gender identity itself — that is that one can have, say, a male body, but be truly a woman ‘on the inside’ — are treated as blasphemers and bigots, viciously harassed, attacked, and even fired from their place of work.

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Dr. Kenneth Zucker is a case in point. A sexologist and psychologist who ran the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) Gender Identity Clinic (GIC) in Toronto for more than 30 years, he was fired after trans activists mounted a smear campaign against him. Zucker’s ‘crime’ was to suggest that rather than immediately start children who think they have gender dysphoria on the transition process, perhaps we should first try to “help children feel comfortable in their own bodies.” Zucker himself was not actually opposed to the transition process — if the dysphoria of the youth he was working with persisted, Zucker would support them in their path to transitioning.

But simply acknowledging that desistance happens was apparently unacceptable. Over 500 professional clinicians and academics signed a petition in support of Zucker, arguing that his dismissal was “politically motivated” and that this should “stand as a warning to any clinical researcher who is or considers working at the CAMH: In the event of a conflict with activists for a fashionable cause, the CAMH might well sacrifice them — and the individuals and families they serve in their clinics — for some real or imagined local political gain.” But the damage was done. Zucker had been fired, and his reputation tarnished.

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The power trans activists hold not only in terms of controlling the narrative surrounding transgenderism itself, but also in determining legislation, policies, and even what research may be conducted and published, in relation to gender identity is astounding.

Which brings us back to Littman’s study. On August 22, Brown University published a press release about the research, which had been published in PLOS ONE, a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Almost immediately, a small number of trans activists complained, both to Brown University and to the journal itself.

One transgender Twitter user dubbed the paper “anti-transgender hate speech”. Another individual, who goes by the name “Hailey Heartless” and identifies as a “sex worker” and “dominatrix”, tweeted:

“The author of the study just wanted it in writing, she didn’t want anyone to review her flawed methodology or bias. She’s happy to do harm to a marginalized group now and take the hit to her credibility later. @HealthyBrown would be wise to distance themselves…

… The linked article was written using transphobic dogwhistles (sex observed at birth, for example), so it’s most likely that they have a transphobic contributor who knows exactly what they’re doing.”

Rather than stand by the professor and the research, Brown University responded by removing the news story and publishing a statement: “The School of Public Health has heard from Brown community members expressing concerns that the conclusions of the study could be used to discredit efforts to support transgender youth and invalidate the perspectives of members of the transgender community.” PLOS ONE published a comment on Littman’s study, explaining:

“PLOS ONE is aware of the reader concerns raised on the study’s content and methodology. We take all concerns raised about publications in the journal very seriously, and are following up on these per our policy and COPE guidelines. As part of our follow up we will seek further expert assessment on the study’s methodology and analyses. We will provide a further update once we have completed our assessment and discussions.”

This response is shocking – the initial complaints came from a small minority of people, none of whom are scholars or scientists. The two individuals who led efforts to have Littman’s research removed and discredited don’t have any particular expertise to offer on her study, beyond being males who choose to identify as women. They have not undertaken a scientific study. They are deeply committed to defending the notion of gender identity and insist that it is possible for males to become literal females, based on nothing more than an announcement of one’s preferred pronouns.

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Academic studies and public debate should not be narrowly determined by those committed to the ideologies in question. No idea can be deemed to be intellectually sound or true, without any doubt, if it isn’t subjected to critique and rigorous study and discussion. And despite the fact that trans activists insist gender identity is not an idea, but a scientific fact, it is clear that this is not the case when the concept of gender itself remains the subject of debate.

Feminists, for example, consider gender to be the set of stereotypes imposed on people at birth, based on their biological sex – for example, the idea that men are unemotional and adventurous whereas women are emotional and passive. These ideas do not determine our physical bodies. Trans activists, on the other hand, along with many on the religious Right, believe that gender is hard-wired, and that these stereotypes are both natural and innate, intricately connected to one’s biological sex (and, in the case of trans activists, they believe these stereotypes and an individual’s feelings about gender actually determine one’s sex).

Those who dare question the concept of gender identity itself are treated as blasphemers and bigots, viciously harassed, attacked, and even fired
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Littman’s research was subject to peer review, revised based on reviewer comments, accepted, then published; meaning her study was determined to be credible and ethical. This does not mean that research should be protected from critique, but, as a former Dean of Harvard Medical School, Jeffrey S. Flier, wrote recently, Littman’s critics “have not performed any systematic analysis of her findings, but seem principally motivated by ideological opposition to her conclusions.”

But regardless of the motivations and actions of these critics, what is more troubling is the cowardice demonstrated on this issue by so many today. Politicians and legislators are clamouring to appear politically correct by creating legislation and policies supporting the notion of gender identity, without considering the consequences. Those who speak out or ask questions about the ideology and activism behind the transgender movement are threatened, abused, no-platformed, fired, and smeared. And too many are simply watching this happen in silence for fear they will be targeted or ostracised themselves.

It should terrify all of us that what we may study, debate and question is being determined by a small group of ideologues, many of whom go so far as to advocate violence against those who don’t toe the line. Regardless of your opinion on transgenderism itself, for all of us, our right to free speech, to speak the truth, and to think critically is under serious threat.

view comments]]> https://stage.unherd.com/2018/12/let-scientific-study-become-trans-speech-2/?edition=us?appcommentsnew https://stage.unherd.com/2018/12/let-scientific-study-become-trans-speech-2/?edition=us/feed/ 18016 What does gender have to do with genitals? https://stage.unherd.com/2018/12/what-does-gender-have-to-do-with-genitals/?edition=us https://stage.unherd.com/2018/12/what-does-gender-have-to-do-with-genitals/?edition=us#comments https://stage.unherd.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/GettyImages-907839892.jpg?w=463 https://stage.unherd.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Screenshot-2026-10-15-at-11.44.56.jpg?w=96 Julie Bindel is an investigative journalist, author, and feminist campaigner. Her latest book is Lesbians: Where are we now? She also writes on Substack.

]]> bindelj Lesbians: Where are we now? She also writes on Substack.]]> Fri, 21 Dec 2018 06:30:27 +0000 Fri, 20 Dec 2019 09:58:41 +0000 http://old.unherd.com/?p=18040 When I came across the tweet “Very much looking forward to a lovely lazy Xmas break and then to cracking on with my article about why ‘sex’ (as in ‘biological’ not desire) is no longer applicable to contemporary feminist theory and activism”, I assumed it was from a Tumblr kid with a blue fringe and an attitude problem who had yet to learn about the birds and the bees.

How wrong I was. The person making the extraordinary claim that biological sex has nothing whatsoever to do with feminism was Sally Hines, Professor of Sociology and Gender Identities at the University of Leeds. In other words, someone responsible for the education of our impressionable youth.

In recent years, the trans debate has produced some crazy views: that men can get pregnant, for example, and that boys can get periods. We women are told to use certain terms to describe our bodies, such as chest feeding, and ‘front hole’ so as not to exclude or offend transgender people.

But this tweet was the clearest example I have seen of the Orwellian double-think employed by a growing number of academic trans-allies: conflating the terms ‘sex’ and ‘gender’. It’s a plank of extreme transgender ideology to deny that there are real and tangible differences between male and female biology, in order, I assume, to make the mantra, ‘trans women are women’ sound less extreme.

Fact and logic – the very bedrock of academic study – are increasingly disappearing when the issue of transgender ideology is on the table. As Kathleen Stock, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sussex explains, it is currently quite fashionable among certain academics to promote the view that biological sex is a social construct.

“Biological sex has a social meaning (gender), but that doesn’t remove the underlying material facts – the social meaning wouldn’t last for long if the biology wasn’t there to underpin it,” says Stock. “To deny this is insulting to those millions of females all over the world who are exploited for their reproductive capacities, or punished for the lack of them.”

Further reading
The media could make a serious difference to trans lives – why won't it?

By Owl Fisher

We women are oppressed on the basis of our biological sex, which is why feminists refer to our status as a ‘sex class’ (like the Marxist analysis of ‘working’ and ‘ruling’ class). Biological sex is the bedrock of women’s oppression. Females in every country in the world are abused and treated as second class citizens because of our biology. Unintentional pregnancy, criminalised abortion, death during childbirth, being left with the burden of caring duties… all this happens to us because we are female, not because of how we identify. Female genital mutilation, bride burning, sex selective abortion, rape, sexual harassment, anorexia, these are all part of the human female condition.

And that is why we would argue so strongly against those who would prefer to have it believed that biological sex does not exist. Look, for example, at this recent article in the New York Times. The writer correctly states: “Defining gender as a condition determined strictly by a person’s genitals is based on a notion that doctors and scientists abandoned long ago as oversimplified and often medically meaningless.” What on earth does gender have to do with genitals? Genitals determine our physical, biological sex, and indicates whether we are male or female, not whether we are destined to like pink or blue.

No one, medic or otherwise, can ‘determine’ gender because it has no basis in material reality. It is comprised of sexist stereotypes. It is a tool of the patriarchy, made up to keep girls and women in place, and to privilege men. Girls are railroaded into playing with tea-sets and wearing pink dresses, and boys and encouraged into rough-and-tumble games and told they can grow up to be soldiers. These are rather crude examples of how boys and girls are socialised into behaviours that are seen by almost everyone – except feminists – to be appropriate to their sex (male or female).

Further reading
When did women's rights stop being human rights?

By Jo Bartosch

Gender is a social construct to keep girls and women subservient to men and boys. But sex is biology. And yet here we have an academic writing about how it is no longer applicable to feminist theory. How can female biology be irrelevant to feminism? When a pregnant woman is not hired, or sacked, this is down to sexism based on our biological functions. If a woman is infertile, or chooses not to have babies, she is often seen as worthless and a failure. Surely it is the job of an academic to explore and interrogate material reality? How is it that a professor of sociology can make such an Orwellian statement? Every female on the planet suffers as a result of the way her body and reproductive functions, in other words her biology, is treated by men under patriarchy.

The oppression and subordination of women, also part of our condition, is prevalent in every society, every nation, and across class, ethnic and cultural groupings.

Claiming that biological sex has nothing to do with the status of females is akin to claiming that the earth is flat. The difference is though, no-one appears to be afraid of laughing at flat-earth fantasists, but most people are still, despite a raging, public debate, are scared to challenge the transactivist extremists.

view comments]]> https://stage.unherd.com/2018/12/what-does-gender-have-to-do-with-genitals/?edition=us?appcommentsnew https://stage.unherd.com/2018/12/what-does-gender-have-to-do-with-genitals/?edition=us/feed/ 18040 Why don’t trans activists practise what they preach? https://stage.unherd.com/2018/11/dont-trans-activists-practise-preach/?edition=us https://stage.unherd.com/2018/11/dont-trans-activists-practise-preach/?edition=us#comments https://stage.unherd.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/GettyImages-644661168-e1611052212977.jpg?w=609 https://stage.unherd.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/meghan.jpg?w=96 Meghan Murphy is a Canadian writer, host of the Same Drugs podcast and People’s Party of Canada candidate in Vancouver East.

]]> FeministCurrent host of the Same Drugs podcast and People’s Party of Canada candidate in Vancouver East.]]> Fri, 23 Nov 2018 11:25:44 +0000 Wed, 13 Nov 2019 17:16:14 +0000 http://old.unherd.com/?p=17435 Last month, Rachel McKinnon won the world title in the women’s 35-44 sprint at the 2018 UCI Masters Track Cycling World Championships. Under normal circumstances, such an achievement would have gone unnoticed by most of the public. But this win was controversial: McKinnon was male — a self-identified transwoman.

On Twitter, McKinnon celebrated, announcing: “First transgender woman world champion…ever.” Jennifer Wagner-Assali, the woman who came in third, wasn’t so pleased. She tweeted: “It’s definitely NOT fair.”

Wagner-Assali later apologised for “not properly congratulating” McKinnon and for “fanning the flames”.

But let’s not pretend she doesn’t have a point. Men and women’s bodies are different. Men are, quite simply, bigger. They have larger organs, bigger bones, and a higher ratio of muscle mass; they have bigger lungs, bigger hearts, and higher oxygen carrying capacity than women. They are generally stronger and faster than women.

Men and women are biologically different in many ways beyond this, but for the purposes of discussing what is “fair” and what is not, in sport, these points are obvious to most. The truth is, there is no possible way to change an adult male, physiologically, into a female.

Despite being a self-declared expert on “the ethics, law, and science of trans athletics”, McKinnon ignores this. Instead, he cites his “human right” to compete, accusing his detractors of having an “irrational fear of transwomen”. As he writes:

“I’m a professor. I teach courses on ethics, including sports ethics, and I’m teaching a course on sport and gender, focusing on the question: Is it fair for trans women to compete in women’s sport? My work answers that question clearly. Yes, it is fair.”

He qualifies this by simply saying that his ID now says he is female. The whole episode pretty much sums up the problem with gender identity ideology and legislation: when males are allowed to change their legal sex on official documents, women get shafted.

The transgender movement has yet to demonstrate what the difference is between a “transwoman” and a male. In fact, it has yet to define what it means to be transgender in any coherent way. But it isn’t even being asked to – all it is being asked for is the correct ID.

So an athlete who competed as a male last year is allowed to compete alongside women today, and any man who declares himself a woman has the right to enter women’s changing rooms, transition houses and washrooms. Those who dispute or question this are called “cruel”, “hateful”, and “bigoted”, and told to live and let live.

Suggested Listening
Test article

By Julie Bindel and Trevor Phillips

In Canada, something similar has happened. A biological man who self-identifies as a woman been calling beauty salons demanding a “Brazilian bikini wax”. When he was refused treatment – waxing male genitalia requires a different technique and supplies, besides the female beauticians might not feel entirely comfortable carrying out the procedure  – he claimed discrimination on account of the fact that he is a “transwoman”. He filed 16 complaints on this basis at the BC Human Rights Tribunal, citing discrimination on the basis of “gender identity”. But what of the rights of the woman asked to wax a man’s scrotum?

And then you have the blatantly abusive cases. Such as that of Karen White (previously Stephen Terence Wood), who was moved to a women’s prison despite numerous rape charges, and, who within days of arriving, attacked four women. In May, nine women filed a lawsuit against Naomi’s House, a shelter for homeless women, and its parent company, the Poverello House, after a man identifying as female was allowed to stay at the shelter, and sexually harassed numerous residents.

The consequences of self-identification can range from the unjust to the criminal. And in all cases it’s the women who are forced to put aside their comfort and safety to accommodate this choice. But when challenged, trans activists like McKinnon reply: “Trans women are women. Trans men are men. Let’s be kind to each other.”

Being kind is all fine and good, but when it comes to dramatic policy and legislative changes that have harmful effects on women, we need rational, evidence-based arguments, not appeals to people’s emotions. Unfortunately, though, this is complicated by the fact that there is a troubling trend among young college-age “social justice activists” that expects people to fall in line through emotional manipulation, with no attempt at a convincing argument.

Suggested reading
The media could make a serious difference to trans lives – why won't it?

By Owl Fisher

I’ve seen this first hand. Last month, I gave a talk in Kitchener, Ontario about the impact of trans activism on women’s rights. What was most interesting (and revealing) to me were the questions and comments from trans activists. One young woman asked, “How do you think your non-inclusive perception of woman and your non-inclusive language actually affects transgender people… [Do] you think you’re hurting their feelings?” In other words, rather than address any of the arguments I’d made in my talk, respond to any of the questions I’d asked or to any of the concerns I’d brought up, she wanted to talk about people’s “feelings”.

When I asked her to define the word “woman,” she replied, “I don’t want to be put on the spot.” When I asked why the word “woman” shouldn’t exclude men, she didn’t respond, and repeated, “I’m wondering how you think your words are affecting people’s feelings.”

I said, “Your words are affecting people’s lives.” Afterwards, the young woman tweeted, “I want to cry because I was just asking this question in attempt to understand if this woman possesses basic empathy… Deeply saddened by the blatant hate at this event yesterday.”

Far from uncommon, this is a go-to strategy on the parts of trans activists. When asked to explain their claims that “transwomen are women”, that individuals can change their sex, or, simply, what a “transwoman” or a “woman” is, they will refuse to respond, and instead accuse the questioner of being “mean,” “hurtful,” “hateful” or “bigoted”.

It’s a successful tactic, since most people do not wish to be considered “bad” or “hateful”. But when it comes to debating ideas and public policy, it makes no sense to avoid critical thinking or evidence, lest we upset those lobbying for the changes or ideology. Imagine if we were asked not to debate war or capitalism or climate change, lest it hurt the feelings of warmongers and capitalists and climate change deniers?

But beyond that, since when did being “nice” entail lying? Or rejecting critical thought? Is it “nice” to accept dogma one believes is harmful or irrational? If someone told you the earth was flat, would you agree in order to avoid hurting their feelings?

Suggested reading
Why the transbullies are a threat to us all

By Julie Bindel

Jonathan Haidt, author of The Coddling of the American Mind, sees this trend as having originated on college campuses, where students have “medicalized” their aversion to certain ideas, books, words, and speakers. Rather than simply protest, as they would have in the past, students are claiming that these ideas, books, words, and speakers are actually harmful, traumatising, or even “literal violence”. And rather than debate these difficult ideas, they no-platform speakers and entirely avoid having to examine what, exactly, they say or believe is troubling about the ideas or words in question.

This isn’t an attitude that will save us from bad policies or harmful political ideologies. In fact, it is already preventing us from forming good ideas and legislation with regard to trans issues. Nor is it good philosophical practice to accept dogma unquestioningly. Besides, how “nice” is it to demand the public go along with your preferred beliefs, lest they be blacklisted, bullied, fired, threatened, or labelled as “bigoted”?

I’ve been threatened with violence online countless times, simply for asking questions about transgender ideology and gender identity legislation. Recently, Twitter locked my account because I tweeted the phrase, “men aren’t women”. This doesn’t strike me as particularly “nice” or open-minded behaviour. Yet somehow I am the one accused of “hate”.

Twitter’s response, after I appealed the suspension, was that I had engaged in “hateful conduct”, thereby breaking “Twitter Rules”. The company declined to elaborate on how saying “men aren’t women” is “hateful” or where, specifically, in Twitter’s Terms of Service, it states users are not permitted to differentiate between men and women.

You may successfully shut people up using these tactics, just as people are silenced and made fearful of rocking the boat under dictatorships. But if this is the preferred way forward, let’s not carry on the charade of describing trans activism as a progressive movement towards acceptance. It smacks, instead, of tyranny.

view comments]]> https://stage.unherd.com/2018/11/dont-trans-activists-practise-preach/?edition=us?appcommentsnew https://stage.unherd.com/2018/11/dont-trans-activists-practise-preach/?edition=us/feed/ 17435 How have we let scientific study become hate speech? https://stage.unherd.com/2018/09/let-scientific-study-become-trans-speech/?edition=us https://stage.unherd.com/2018/09/let-scientific-study-become-trans-speech/?edition=us#respond https://stage.unherd.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/GettyImages-644661168.jpg?w=525 https://stage.unherd.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/meghan.jpg?w=96 Meghan Murphy is a Canadian writer, host of the Same Drugs podcast and People’s Party of Canada candidate in Vancouver East.

]]> FeministCurrent host of the Same Drugs podcast and People’s Party of Canada candidate in Vancouver East.]]> Wed, 05 Sep 2018 10:53:24 +0000 Fri, 07 Sep 2018 07:32:33 +0000 http://old.unherd.com/?p=16069 The growing trend in young people suddenly deciding they are “in the wrong body” and must “transition” to the opposite sex is alarming. It means that more and more kids are being sent down a path of drastic body and life changes. The consequences of getting this wrong could not be more serious. Study after study has shown that a majority of youth who claim to have gender dysphoria do not continue to experience this in adulthood. Yet the puberty blockers and the hormone treatments given to ‘trans kids’ eventually lead to permanent sterilisation. And yet as the trend takes hold, the attempts to shut down public debate also grow stronger – which is just as alarming.

Last month, Brown University assistant professor Lisa Littman published a paper looking at this “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” in adolescents and young adults. Through surveying the parents of these teens, she found that this sudden onset of “gender dysphoria” was taking place in peer groups in which one or more friends became gender dysphoric at the same time. In other words, this seemed to be kids following trends.

Academic studies and public debate should not be narrowly determined by those committed to the ideologies in question
-

From the 256 surveys Littman collected, she found that a large majority of these youths were female (82.8%), and 41% had identified as non-heterosexual prior to identifying as transgender. Almost two thirds had also been diagnosed with at least one mental health disorder or neurodevelopmental disability before they claimed to have gender dysphoria.

One might deduce, based on this evidence, that these (mainly) girls were not, in fact, transgender, but lesbians and/or struggling with other mental health issues beyond gender dysphoria. And crucially, that these factors should be explored before leaping to start “transitioning” — a process that eventually involves a lifetime of hormone treatments and a series of complicated surgeries.

These facts, though, have been deemed unspeakable. Those who dare question the concept of gender identity itself — that is that one can have, say, a male body, but be truly a woman ‘on the inside’ — are treated as blasphemers and bigots, viciously harassed, attacked, and even fired from their place of work.

Further reading
When did women's rights stop being human rights?

By Jo Bartosch

Dr. Kenneth Zucker is a case in point. A sexologist and psychologist who ran the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) Gender Identity Clinic (GIC) in Toronto for more than 30 years, he was fired after trans activists mounted a smear campaign against him. Zucker’s ‘crime’ was to suggest that rather than immediately start children who think they have gender dysphoria on the transition process, perhaps we should first try to “help children feel comfortable in their own bodies.” Zucker himself was not actually opposed to the transition process — if the dysphoria of the youth he was working with persisted, Zucker would support them in their path to transitioning.

But simply acknowledging that desistance happens was apparently unacceptable. Over 500 professional clinicians and academics signed a petition in support of Zucker, arguing that his dismissal was “politically motivated” and that this should “stand as a warning to any clinical researcher who is or considers working at the CAMH: In the event of a conflict with activists for a fashionable cause, the CAMH might well sacrifice them — and the individuals and families they serve in their clinics — for some real or imagined local political gain.” But the damage was done. Zucker had been fired, and his reputation tarnished.

Further reading
Why you can't rely on the news media to understand... trans issues

By Julie Bindel

The power trans activists hold not only in terms of controlling the narrative surrounding transgenderism itself, but also in determining legislation, policies, and even what research may be conducted and published, in relation to gender identity is astounding.

Which brings us back to Littman’s study. On August 22, Brown University published a press release about the research, which had been published in PLOS ONE, a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Almost immediately, a small number of trans activists complained, both to Brown University and to the journal itself.

One transgender Twitter user dubbed the paper “anti-transgender hate speech”. Another individual, who goes by the name “Hailey Heartless” and identifies as a “sex worker” and “dominatrix”, tweeted:

“The author of the study just wanted it in writing, she didn’t want anyone to review her flawed methodology or bias. She’s happy to do harm to a marginalized group now and take the hit to her credibility later. @HealthyBrown would be wise to distance themselves…

… The linked article was written using transphobic dogwhistles (sex observed at birth, for example), so it’s most likely that they have a transphobic contributor who knows exactly what they’re doing.”

Rather than stand by the professor and the research, Brown University responded by removing the news story and publishing a statement: “The School of Public Health has heard from Brown community members expressing concerns that the conclusions of the study could be used to discredit efforts to support transgender youth and invalidate the perspectives of members of the transgender community.” PLOS ONE published a comment on Littman’s study, explaining:

“PLOS ONE is aware of the reader concerns raised on the study’s content and methodology. We take all concerns raised about publications in the journal very seriously, and are following up on these per our policy and COPE guidelines. As part of our follow up we will seek further expert assessment on the study’s methodology and analyses. We will provide a further update once we have completed our assessment and discussions.”

This response is shocking – the initial complaints came from a small minority of people, none of whom are scholars or scientists. The two individuals who led efforts to have Littman’s research removed and discredited don’t have any particular expertise to offer on her study, beyond being males who choose to identify as women. They have not undertaken a scientific study. They are deeply committed to defending the notion of gender identity and insist that it is possible for males to become literal females, based on nothing more than an announcement of one’s preferred pronouns.

Further reading
The media could make a serious difference to trans lives – why won't it?

By Owl Fisher

Academic studies and public debate should not be narrowly determined by those committed to the ideologies in question. No idea can be deemed to be intellectually sound or true, without any doubt, if it isn’t subjected to critique and rigorous study and discussion. And despite the fact that trans activists insist gender identity is not an idea, but a scientific fact, it is clear that this is not the case when the concept of gender itself remains the subject of debate.

Feminists, for example, consider gender to be the set of stereotypes imposed on people at birth, based on their biological sex – for example, the idea that men are unemotional and adventurous whereas women are emotional and passive. These ideas do not determine our physical bodies. Trans activists, on the other hand, along with many on the religious Right, believe that gender is hard-wired, and that these stereotypes are both natural and innate, intricately connected to one’s biological sex (and, in the case of trans activists, they believe these stereotypes and an individual’s feelings about gender actually determine one’s sex).

Those who dare question the concept of gender identity itself are treated as blasphemers and bigots, viciously harassed, attacked, and even fired
-

Littman’s research was subject to peer review, revised based on reviewer comments, accepted, then published; meaning her study was determined to be credible and ethical. This does not mean that research should be protected from critique, but, as a former Dean of Harvard Medical School, Jeffrey S. Flier, wrote recently, Littman’s critics “have not performed any systematic analysis of her findings, but seem principally motivated by ideological opposition to her conclusions.”

But regardless of the motivations and actions of these critics, what is more troubling is the cowardice demonstrated on this issue by so many today. Politicians and legislators are clamouring to appear politically correct by creating legislation and policies supporting the notion of gender identity, without considering the consequences. Those who speak out or ask questions about the ideology and activism behind the transgender movement are threatened, abused, no-platformed, fired, and smeared. And too many are simply watching this happen in silence for fear they will be targeted or ostracised themselves.

It should terrify all of us that what we may study, debate and question is being determined by a small group of ideologues, many of whom go so far as to advocate violence against those who don’t toe the line. Regardless of your opinion on transgenderism itself, for all of us, our right to free speech, to speak the truth, and to think critically is under serious threat.

view comments]]> https://stage.unherd.com/2018/09/let-scientific-study-become-trans-speech/?edition=us?appcommentsnew https://stage.unherd.com/2018/09/let-scientific-study-become-trans-speech/?edition=us/feed/ 16069